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Does your US Fender actually have 'Made in the USA' on it? I bought my Fender Elite Precision in 2018 and it has 'Made in Corona' stamped on it. Apparently there's not enough of it, actually made in America, to allow it to be stamped 'Made in the USA'. I bought a jack plug input for it, and although it's in a Fender branded bag, and it's the specific part for that bass. it says 'Made in Taiwan' on it. If we stop buying USA Fenders, we'll put just put a lot of far eastern factories out of business.

A sneak peek at the next one that I've so far only done some body preparation on: custom single piece mahogany body Warmoth solid wenge custom neck with Hipshot Ultralite tuners 1990's active Seymour Duncan dual J pickups (3 built in microswitches to select voicing) Darkglass active 3-band circuit NOS Kahler brass bridge A bit more work needed with this one as the neck heel routed/ drilled for some custom neck whereas the Warmoth neck is Fender fit, and wiring will be more complex, but it'll be a nice little winter / spring project

Fair enough 😆 - I note the Adagios are nickel wound, whereas both the HBs and Olympias (which may be one and the same - TBD) are stainless steel.

I've just ordered myself a new 5 string Spector and will need a gig bag for it. The Sire I'm returning has such a nice gig bag included that I'd keep if I could get away with it. The thing I like about it is that when there is no bass in it, it does just flop in to a pile on the floor - it's that semi-rigid EVA style material that retains its shape. Any suggestions for a good gig bag (ideally £60 or thereabouts) of that style? Would need a front pocket that could take a few cables and a mini pedalboard (HX stomp and 1 other small pedal) Looking at this https://thebassgallery.com/collections/gig-bags/products/tgi-extreme-bass-gigbag

Nice! Daryl

Some really great recent bitsas on this thread! There was a time around 15 years ago I was building a bitsa pretty much every year, but lately been winding the bass playing down, got too many basses altogether, and spending time and money on other things....... However, I realised last year that I had enough parts lying around to build probably at least 2 complete bitsas - so thought I'd make the effort to make a final pair. The first, a fairly conventional Jazz-type, was really just a matter of putting the parts together; most of the work was in finishing the body. All parts previously used (mainly from here and eBay) except for circuit, control knobs, and neck plate. Ash G&B jazz body with rear-routed controls, slab top with tort binding (NB: top is not a separate facing / cap but the front of the body wood). Sealed with French polish- which nicely accentuated previous wear - and top coated with clear nitrocellulose lacquer. Squier (Indonesian) Jazz neck and tuners - surprisingly nice Passive Cellinder Jazz pickups, VVT passive circuit (CTS / Switchcraft) Badass II bridge Schaller strap-locks You'll notice it's not finished; I haven't cut out a rear control cavity cover - mainly as my garage has been too bloomin' cold! 🥶 But already using it as my home practice bass; it plays nicely, and as you'd expect the Armstrong-made Cellinder pickups sound sublime

I think the tort guards can make or break a bass, the only ones that come close to the originals are spitfire and Avantguard , but they are really expensive

To me, Tort always makes anything look cheap, probably because some of the first no name basses I had used tort. White and black work.

I sold a p bass with them on to a guy who was clearly 73,989 times more talented than me. He said “I love the bass but what are these strings? They're amazing” I said “adagio cheapies” and he looked at me like I was lying. They’d been on there for two years -recommend that you give them a shot. If you don’t get on with them, list them on here for £7 and I’ll take them off you

Brilliant post, Spencer! For me, it's the white/parchment/mint that always looks wrong. They make a nice bass look cheap (unless it's mint on aged white), because that's what the Mexican basses had in the 80's & 90's. A nice dark red or brown tort goes with practically everything, and a black scratch guard solves all colour crimes. I recently put a tasteful dark red tort on a black American Professional II Jazz I took in as a p/x. Looks much better than the OEM mint.

Mirò In The Bathroom — The Beat

Kev bought my Sandberg, prompt payment, great communication and great to chat with! Credit to Basschat. Enjoy the bass - cheers!

Monet, Monet, Monet - Abba

Ah, well that makes a lot more sense then - an independent operation but with a license to use HB branding and import a select product line. That tracks with what I've seen over the last few years (as an observer). Guitar Fetish will no doubt have been hit hard.

TBG seem to change the pricing on their site once a bass has sold from basses I’ve been following. I don’t know if it’s to do with sale minus commission and they record that value on the site.